


Rules

by trollopfop (storyinmypocket)



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-18
Updated: 2007-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-08 22:10:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyinmypocket/pseuds/trollopfop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the rules are lies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of thanks to dorsetgirl and liquorishflame on LiveJournal for the invaluable Britpicking and beta work.

There are rules for clandestine buggery. No one ever lists them for you, but you learn them anyway, passed from one copper to another in a silent conspiracy of shame.

All the rules are lies.

The first rule: You're not some queer. Or at least, that's what your DCI tells you when he pushes you against a wall and kisses you hard, fingers working at your trousers. There are no fairies among Manchester's finest.

It's not about wanting men. It's about wanting a serious, no-frills angry fuck when the violence and sickness out there make you want to scream or hurt someone or just remember you're flesh and blood and not some ice-cold bastard that only lives to collar the scum of the earth.

It's not something you do with wives or girlfriends, or even that one bird at the pub that keeps giving you looks like she'll eat you alive. This isn't something you'd demean a woman with. It's primal and dirty and the kind of thing you'd only trust to someone who's seen what you have, who wears all the same scars.

But it doesn't make you queer.

Second rule: It's supposed to hurt. Has to, otherwise you're coming close to breaking the first rule. And if the first rule's something that he (he, always _he,_ because even in your most secret fantasies you don't dare put a name to hands and lips and a cock you know better than your own) had to whisper to you, this is one he never breathes a word of, but you learn anyway.

It hurts, because it's not natural, and never should be. It's rage and penance, not a bloody romantic interlude. So when he bends you over his desk and shoves in with naught but a pair of too-hasty fingers and a bit of Vaseline to prepare you, you cling to the pain like a drowning man. You're _thankful_ for it. Makes it easier to pretend it's not something you want. Need. Crave.

And when time passes and your body gets used to the violation, when the pain fades and you open for him quick and ready and all but _begging_ for it, not even the pleasure of it can make you feel less like a whore for him.

Third rule: Nothing's happening, and there's nothing to deny. Except in those moments when he's got his hands on you, nothing changes. You don't give little cues, or surreptitious looks. You don't have dinner together, or linger any longer over your beer than you would with anyone else. You never stay the night. Never hold each other.

It happens when it happens, and even if you can smell it coming in the air, you don't betray it with so much as the flicker of an eye. It's almost an extension of the instinct that makes you a good copper, the way you tune into the tension running between you, and you never, ever give a sign. He knows you know. Knows you'll be on your knees for him in the space of an hour or two.

And that's enough.

Fourth rule: Don't get too close. Never fall in love. It's not what it's about, is it? No matter what you think. Or feel.

If there are nights when he lingers a bit instead of pulling away and straightening his tie, if there are times when his touch seems almost tender, he always finds ways to bring the distance back.

He whispers filth in your ear when he takes you, promises to make you hurt and bleed and tells you you'll love it when he does. You'll beg for it, because damned if someone like you wasn't just made to be used like that. Used by him, and no one else, and don't you dare forget that.

Those are the only words allowed then, and no matter how angry they make you, you know why: because if he didn't say them, if he didn't make this just a quick and dirty shag (fucking, you're just _fucking_ and nothing more), one of you could say something else entirely... And the reasons that can't happen are obvious enough, aren't they? You hate him and resent him, and still you welcome it. Closest you'll ever come to sweet nothings.

He'll never say he loves you, but he'll elaborate at length on all the ways he'll violate you, and neither of you will dare say that they're more or less the same thing. You'll never even admit it to yourself, because, for the last time, _you don't love him._

You're loyal. It's different.

And the fifth rule: All the rules are lies, but you have to believe them anyway. You've got no choice. It's the only way you can face yourself in the mirror each day.

Years later, you look back and you finally admit that you loved him. That you still do. Not the loyalty you have to your DCI, not animal lust, but real, honest love, truer and stronger than you've ever felt before or likely ever will again.

That's the day you stop looking in mirrors, because you've just shown the lies for what they are, and it's too bloody late. Easier to stop looking and start drinking than to stare yourself in the face and admit what you could've had.

And so it goes on.

You make DCI. You get a team of your own, a chance to try and fill the shoes he left. And you play by the rules you've learned to hate, because you don't know any other way.

But when your shiny new pain-in-the-arse DI dares to call it what it is, when he kisses you for the first time, in defiance of everything, in some miraculous ignorance of the silent code which has governed every waking moment since that first kiss years and years ago... you let him. You beat him near-senseless for it later, but in that moment, you let him.

You let yourself think of kissing him for hours, of sleeping curled around him, arm around his waist, holding him close to you. You dare explore his body like a lover, not like an animal in heat, as gently as if he were a woman. And he's anything but, no matter what you say when there are witnesses.

But when you open your mouth, after all these years it's still _his_ words that come out. _His_ rules. One leading to the other neat as you please, and you start to think maybe it's for the best. The little ponce doesn't know better, but he'll learn. And if there's hurt in his eyes now, it'll go away in time, once he figures out how things work.

In the end, it just comes down to one thing: all the rules are lies, and you're the biggest liar of them all.


End file.
